Numb3rs finales and MBTI the characters
Jul. 14th, 2008 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlI saw the tail end of The Janus List on ITV3 tonight, and now I have plot bunnies for last year's finale. Actually, having seen When Worlds Collide, you could have a really nice little irony thing going on there. Don thinking that at least there's one person who's not going to to turn out to be a Chinese spy...little does he know, poor boy.
If you've been around here for long, you'll have noticed I like to run characters from my fandoms through a Myers-Briggs test, and I thought I'd try Numb3rs.
There are four pairs of letters: Extraverted/Introverted, whether they get energy from acting and dealing with people, or from reflecting on ideas. iNtuitive/Sensing, whether they take in information as a system and internalise it, or focus on the concrete and the details of the real world. Thinking/Feeling, whether they make decisions based on logic or emotions. And Judging/Perceiving, how they organise themselves in relation to the world. Js are organised, tidy and decisive, while Ps are flexible and spontaneous.
Charlie is a Rational (NT), it couldn't be plainer if he had it tattooed on his forehead. Rationals are problem solvers, big-picture thinkers, intensely logical, interested in abstract concepts and complex systems. They also tend to be very focused and to, um, lack people skills.
Charlie sees the world as something to be understood. He's great at boiling data down to priciples and abstract concepts, and he's also good at explaining this to other people after he's done it, although he tends to introduce too much complexity for his audience at times. He's pragmatic, skeptical and lives by logic. All these are classic NT traits. (Actually all the CalSci staff are NTs IMO; Larry and Amita are more introverts; Millie is an extravert.)
Charlie is an Introvert, which doesn't mean that he can't deal with people, he just prefers ideas. He spends his time with his family and a few friends, is quite happy to not leave the house for weeks, and when he's under stress he hides in the garage and does math. Introvert.
For the last pair, J/P, I think he's a P. He's confident in his abilities, and he hates change, J traits, but on the other hand his office can generously be described as organised chaos, he forgets appointments, and he's perfectly happy to drop everything when Don needs him or some interesting problem comes along, so I think he comes down on the disorganised/spontaneous side. He is so disorganised in so many areas that I have trouble seeing him as a J.
This makes him an INTP, or possibly INTJ. I'd say INTP but then, I'm an INTP myself, so I may be biased..
Don is a lot trickier. I'm pretty certain he's a Guardian (SJ). SJs are reliable, organised, loyal, hard-working, focused on justice, family-oriented, respectful of laws and authority. Sounds familiar? They make good cops. The only factor against Don being an SJ is his tendency to bend the rulebook into little origami shapes when he thinks the end justifies the means, but he does seem to have a finely honed sense of exactly how far he can go and get away with it. I have a hunch that this may be his Alan-and-Margaret-derived values conflicting with his FBI-derived values, because you know they would put people ahead of laws. (I also have a hunch that Margaret was another SJ type.) SJs develop their values from external authorities and laws, while N types follow their intuition and inner sense of what's right. Hence the situation we have as of the season 4 finale.
Another thing that's not characteristic of SJs is the whole revolving door of girlfriends thing. SJs are usually reliable mates.
Though I've noticed everyone talks and talks about Don's love-em-and-leave-em reputation, but what we actually see is a guy who gets dumped an awful lot for a commitment-phobe. He was engaged to Kim, and in both the Liz and Robin relationships, it's Don who's pushing for stability and commitment, while they aren't so sure. And he seems to genuinely care for all the exes that he keeps falling over, even years later. I'm going to hypothesise that the running out on relationships was a result of something that happened after his personality was set (burned by the Kim thing, perhaps?).Or Rob Morrow wanting more acting fodder at the cost of making Don a less sympathetic character.
Anyway, Don's not self-focused enough to be an NF (Self-aware, sure. Self-focused, no.), and he's too uptight to be an SP. And there's no way he's an NT.
Introverted or Extraverted? He's more comfortable in acting and in dealing with people than Charlie is, but on the other hand, when Charlie has a problem, mathematical or personal, his whole circle of acquaintance will hear about it sooner or later. When Don has a problem, either he holes up in his apartment and watches sports TV, or he goes to Alan and has it dragged out of him by the parental third degree. And he doesn't appear to have any friends apart from his brother and his colleagues. I'd say Introvert, except that I-J types are reluctant leaders, and Don seems to be a natural. But I suppose we can't see whether it's an effort or not. One point that jumped out at me here is that ISxJ types in leadership positions are terrible delegators. Yeah, hello there, One Hour.
Practically all of Don's extraverted behaviour is at work, which would suggest that it's learned, apart from the minor detail that he spends most of his life on the job :). All the downtime we see is with Alan and Charlie, the girl of the moment, the team, or, when he's in the bad head-space, holed up by himself. I'll say he's mildly Introverted.
F or T? I really had difficulty with this. He's good at dealing with people, he empathizes with victims and witnesses and even perpetrators(too much for his own mental health), he wants to be his team's friend instead of some hardass. He'll decide to do something because of what he feels, it doesn't have to be logical the way it does for Charlie. When he messes up with people, it's not because of cluelessness like Charlie, it's because he doesn't have the emotional energy himself to deal with it (Rampage, when his "He'll be all right. Right?" line combined the maximum of dubiousness with a large side of 'I really can't cope with another round of that damn NP thing.")
I think he actually acts more T around Charlie, possibly in an attempt to speak his language, but when he's upset with him it usual reverts to "I need you, lives are at stake here, come on, buddy," but that's not exactly conclusive as it could be an inferior Feeling function emerging under stress.
"Detached is how I function" could go either way as well. The fact that Charlie picks up on it suggests that the Don he remembers from their childhood wasn't detached (but then Charlie-the-INTx starts out with hardly any detachment), and post-therapy Don has lost some of that detachment. For instance, he let the Robin Hood bank robber go because his crimes were committed seeking revenge for his brother's death and Don empathised with him ('murdered brother' had to be pushing all his buttons). He wangled that plea bargain for the marine whose family was kidnapped.
On the other hand, ISTJs are more at ease as leaders than ISFJs, while still having trouble delegating, and being an Introverted Thinker would explain why he's so emotionally closed off. Either way, it's not strongly expressed, not like Charlie.
So that gives me either ISTJ or ISFJ. I could just about see him as an ESTJ if I'm wrong about the E/I, but one thing he's not is ESFJ. Extroverted Feelers wear their hearts on their sleeves, which is exactly the opposite of Don.
Note that these are preferences; Charlie's a T and he still feels empathy; Don the J can improvise when he needs to, and so on.
Larry is your classic INTP. He's so absent-minded-professor he makes Charlie look normal.
Amita is another NT. The math inclines her that way, and I'm convinced only two Ts could have made the mess that Charlie and Amita did of their relationship in s2. :) I'd say she's an Introvert, as she seems happy enough to hang out with Charlie and Larry and playing a MMORG with her undergraduate friends. Less introverted than the men, though. J or P? She does seem to have trouble making up her mind, but I don't think we really know enough. I think part of the problem some people have with Amita (apart from the Doylist reasons, wobbly writing and a lack of knowledge of how academia works, especially for a woman), is that she's an Introverted Thinker, and can come across as cold and reserved. But that's how Charlie functions too, so I think they'll be okay, or would if they were real.
Millie I think is ENTJ. She seems to genuinely like meeting new people, and she definitely likes organising them. Being a T, she goes about this rather tactlessly. :)
The FBI characters are going to skew SJ on average in the same way the geeks skew NT.
Starting with Terry: Hard, because she's reserved. SJ almost certainly, given the job and her original attitude to math (Does it serve a useful purpose in the real world? If not, why bother?). Introverted, I'm pretty certain. I also think she's a T, comparing her to Don at any rate. I thought it was interesting in s1 the way they set up the two of them; Terry's the woman and the psychologist, it would have been easy for her to deal with the people skills while Don was Mr Macho Agent, but instead it's Don who connects emotionally with the victims, pretty consistently. Given my difficulty with deciding whether he's an F or a T, anyone more T than he is has got to be a T. So that gives ISTJ for Terry.
David is your textbook SJ: reliable, loyal, goes by the book, comfortable with the conventions. I'd say he's possibly another introvert, given that he's quiet and doesn't seem keen on being a leader, but it could go either way. T or F? No idea. He's level-headed, but that could go with being an introverted SJ. So ISxJ for David.
Colby. Hey ho, another Fed, another SJ. He shares something of Don's erratic approach to the rulebook, but he loves the job so much that, after he ends up framed as a spy and almost killed, instead of saying, "Stuff this, I'm going to go back to Idaho and fish," he comes back for more punishment. I or E? Again, I don't think we have enough data. A certain lack of emotional clue inclines my to peg him as T, which may be why he gets on with Charlie so well, after a sticky start with the N/S opposition. So I get xSTJ for him.
Megan. Ah, Megan is something quite different. She's an idealist, an NF. Ok, psychology's a soft science, but she is working off a system rather than the well-it-worked-last-time approach of the SJs. Note also her different attitude to authority. The guys are all "This is the rulebook, and this is the rulebook we just threw out the window" whereas Megan came back from the DoJ assignment saying "This is wrong," followed within a few months by "And I'm outta here." She leaves to develop herself personally (the doctorate) and help others (the counselling), both of which are important to NFs. I think she's an extravert, as she has no problems acting as a leader, and she seems to like dealing with people. She strikes me as ENFJ somehow.
Liz. I can't pin Liz down to anything really. She has adrenaline issues and she's career focused and she sleeps with Don at inappropriate times, like when he's her boss or when she thinks he's dating someone else. Oh, Liz, you would be so much cooler if you hadn't done that. Based on her reaction to Charlie at times, I'd say she's an S. Let's go with the prevailing trend and call her xSxJ.
Anyone else? Oh, Alan. Older adults are harder, because over their lifetimes they have learned to act on both sides of the dichotomies, so it's had to tell their inner preference. I would say another NF, except that he seems to have difficulty in understanding Charlie sometimes, which I don't think a fellow N would. I think he's either an ESFJ or an ENFJ.
I think Margaret had to be either an NF or an SJ. Although the way I write her, she ends up more like a T. I think this is really a case of not enough information.
What do you all think? Particularly Don, he's so hard to pin down.
If you've been around here for long, you'll have noticed I like to run characters from my fandoms through a Myers-Briggs test, and I thought I'd try Numb3rs.
There are four pairs of letters: Extraverted/Introverted, whether they get energy from acting and dealing with people, or from reflecting on ideas. iNtuitive/Sensing, whether they take in information as a system and internalise it, or focus on the concrete and the details of the real world. Thinking/Feeling, whether they make decisions based on logic or emotions. And Judging/Perceiving, how they organise themselves in relation to the world. Js are organised, tidy and decisive, while Ps are flexible and spontaneous.
Charlie is a Rational (NT), it couldn't be plainer if he had it tattooed on his forehead. Rationals are problem solvers, big-picture thinkers, intensely logical, interested in abstract concepts and complex systems. They also tend to be very focused and to, um, lack people skills.
Charlie sees the world as something to be understood. He's great at boiling data down to priciples and abstract concepts, and he's also good at explaining this to other people after he's done it, although he tends to introduce too much complexity for his audience at times. He's pragmatic, skeptical and lives by logic. All these are classic NT traits. (Actually all the CalSci staff are NTs IMO; Larry and Amita are more introverts; Millie is an extravert.)
Charlie is an Introvert, which doesn't mean that he can't deal with people, he just prefers ideas. He spends his time with his family and a few friends, is quite happy to not leave the house for weeks, and when he's under stress he hides in the garage and does math. Introvert.
For the last pair, J/P, I think he's a P. He's confident in his abilities, and he hates change, J traits, but on the other hand his office can generously be described as organised chaos, he forgets appointments, and he's perfectly happy to drop everything when Don needs him or some interesting problem comes along, so I think he comes down on the disorganised/spontaneous side. He is so disorganised in so many areas that I have trouble seeing him as a J.
This makes him an INTP, or possibly INTJ. I'd say INTP but then, I'm an INTP myself, so I may be biased..
Don is a lot trickier. I'm pretty certain he's a Guardian (SJ). SJs are reliable, organised, loyal, hard-working, focused on justice, family-oriented, respectful of laws and authority. Sounds familiar? They make good cops. The only factor against Don being an SJ is his tendency to bend the rulebook into little origami shapes when he thinks the end justifies the means, but he does seem to have a finely honed sense of exactly how far he can go and get away with it. I have a hunch that this may be his Alan-and-Margaret-derived values conflicting with his FBI-derived values, because you know they would put people ahead of laws. (I also have a hunch that Margaret was another SJ type.) SJs develop their values from external authorities and laws, while N types follow their intuition and inner sense of what's right. Hence the situation we have as of the season 4 finale.
Another thing that's not characteristic of SJs is the whole revolving door of girlfriends thing. SJs are usually reliable mates.
Though I've noticed everyone talks and talks about Don's love-em-and-leave-em reputation, but what we actually see is a guy who gets dumped an awful lot for a commitment-phobe. He was engaged to Kim, and in both the Liz and Robin relationships, it's Don who's pushing for stability and commitment, while they aren't so sure. And he seems to genuinely care for all the exes that he keeps falling over, even years later. I'm going to hypothesise that the running out on relationships was a result of something that happened after his personality was set (burned by the Kim thing, perhaps?).
Anyway, Don's not self-focused enough to be an NF (Self-aware, sure. Self-focused, no.), and he's too uptight to be an SP. And there's no way he's an NT.
Introverted or Extraverted? He's more comfortable in acting and in dealing with people than Charlie is, but on the other hand, when Charlie has a problem, mathematical or personal, his whole circle of acquaintance will hear about it sooner or later. When Don has a problem, either he holes up in his apartment and watches sports TV, or he goes to Alan and has it dragged out of him by the parental third degree. And he doesn't appear to have any friends apart from his brother and his colleagues. I'd say Introvert, except that I-J types are reluctant leaders, and Don seems to be a natural. But I suppose we can't see whether it's an effort or not. One point that jumped out at me here is that ISxJ types in leadership positions are terrible delegators. Yeah, hello there, One Hour.
Practically all of Don's extraverted behaviour is at work, which would suggest that it's learned, apart from the minor detail that he spends most of his life on the job :). All the downtime we see is with Alan and Charlie, the girl of the moment, the team, or, when he's in the bad head-space, holed up by himself. I'll say he's mildly Introverted.
F or T? I really had difficulty with this. He's good at dealing with people, he empathizes with victims and witnesses and even perpetrators(too much for his own mental health), he wants to be his team's friend instead of some hardass. He'll decide to do something because of what he feels, it doesn't have to be logical the way it does for Charlie. When he messes up with people, it's not because of cluelessness like Charlie, it's because he doesn't have the emotional energy himself to deal with it (Rampage, when his "He'll be all right. Right?" line combined the maximum of dubiousness with a large side of 'I really can't cope with another round of that damn NP thing.")
I think he actually acts more T around Charlie, possibly in an attempt to speak his language, but when he's upset with him it usual reverts to "I need you, lives are at stake here, come on, buddy," but that's not exactly conclusive as it could be an inferior Feeling function emerging under stress.
"Detached is how I function" could go either way as well. The fact that Charlie picks up on it suggests that the Don he remembers from their childhood wasn't detached (but then Charlie-the-INTx starts out with hardly any detachment), and post-therapy Don has lost some of that detachment. For instance, he let the Robin Hood bank robber go because his crimes were committed seeking revenge for his brother's death and Don empathised with him ('murdered brother' had to be pushing all his buttons). He wangled that plea bargain for the marine whose family was kidnapped.
On the other hand, ISTJs are more at ease as leaders than ISFJs, while still having trouble delegating, and being an Introverted Thinker would explain why he's so emotionally closed off. Either way, it's not strongly expressed, not like Charlie.
So that gives me either ISTJ or ISFJ. I could just about see him as an ESTJ if I'm wrong about the E/I, but one thing he's not is ESFJ. Extroverted Feelers wear their hearts on their sleeves, which is exactly the opposite of Don.
Note that these are preferences; Charlie's a T and he still feels empathy; Don the J can improvise when he needs to, and so on.
Larry is your classic INTP. He's so absent-minded-professor he makes Charlie look normal.
Amita is another NT. The math inclines her that way, and I'm convinced only two Ts could have made the mess that Charlie and Amita did of their relationship in s2. :) I'd say she's an Introvert, as she seems happy enough to hang out with Charlie and Larry and playing a MMORG with her undergraduate friends. Less introverted than the men, though. J or P? She does seem to have trouble making up her mind, but I don't think we really know enough. I think part of the problem some people have with Amita (apart from the Doylist reasons, wobbly writing and a lack of knowledge of how academia works, especially for a woman), is that she's an Introverted Thinker, and can come across as cold and reserved. But that's how Charlie functions too, so I think they'll be okay, or would if they were real.
Millie I think is ENTJ. She seems to genuinely like meeting new people, and she definitely likes organising them. Being a T, she goes about this rather tactlessly. :)
The FBI characters are going to skew SJ on average in the same way the geeks skew NT.
Starting with Terry: Hard, because she's reserved. SJ almost certainly, given the job and her original attitude to math (Does it serve a useful purpose in the real world? If not, why bother?). Introverted, I'm pretty certain. I also think she's a T, comparing her to Don at any rate. I thought it was interesting in s1 the way they set up the two of them; Terry's the woman and the psychologist, it would have been easy for her to deal with the people skills while Don was Mr Macho Agent, but instead it's Don who connects emotionally with the victims, pretty consistently. Given my difficulty with deciding whether he's an F or a T, anyone more T than he is has got to be a T. So that gives ISTJ for Terry.
David is your textbook SJ: reliable, loyal, goes by the book, comfortable with the conventions. I'd say he's possibly another introvert, given that he's quiet and doesn't seem keen on being a leader, but it could go either way. T or F? No idea. He's level-headed, but that could go with being an introverted SJ. So ISxJ for David.
Colby. Hey ho, another Fed, another SJ. He shares something of Don's erratic approach to the rulebook, but he loves the job so much that, after he ends up framed as a spy and almost killed, instead of saying, "Stuff this, I'm going to go back to Idaho and fish," he comes back for more punishment. I or E? Again, I don't think we have enough data. A certain lack of emotional clue inclines my to peg him as T, which may be why he gets on with Charlie so well, after a sticky start with the N/S opposition. So I get xSTJ for him.
Megan. Ah, Megan is something quite different. She's an idealist, an NF. Ok, psychology's a soft science, but she is working off a system rather than the well-it-worked-last-time approach of the SJs. Note also her different attitude to authority. The guys are all "This is the rulebook, and this is the rulebook we just threw out the window" whereas Megan came back from the DoJ assignment saying "This is wrong," followed within a few months by "And I'm outta here." She leaves to develop herself personally (the doctorate) and help others (the counselling), both of which are important to NFs. I think she's an extravert, as she has no problems acting as a leader, and she seems to like dealing with people. She strikes me as ENFJ somehow.
Liz. I can't pin Liz down to anything really. She has adrenaline issues and she's career focused and she sleeps with Don at inappropriate times, like when he's her boss or when she thinks he's dating someone else. Oh, Liz, you would be so much cooler if you hadn't done that. Based on her reaction to Charlie at times, I'd say she's an S. Let's go with the prevailing trend and call her xSxJ.
Anyone else? Oh, Alan. Older adults are harder, because over their lifetimes they have learned to act on both sides of the dichotomies, so it's had to tell their inner preference. I would say another NF, except that he seems to have difficulty in understanding Charlie sometimes, which I don't think a fellow N would. I think he's either an ESFJ or an ENFJ.
I think Margaret had to be either an NF or an SJ. Although the way I write her, she ends up more like a T. I think this is really a case of not enough information.
What do you all think? Particularly Don, he's so hard to pin down.
